Probes into teacher misconduct delayed; calm urged

Carlie Rose Attebury, a former band director at El Modena High School in Orange, sits in a Santa Ana courtroom in November 2010 awaiting a jury verdict for having sex with a 16-year-old student. Although it took more than two years to get a guilty verdict in the case, she was put on paid leave by the Orange Unified School District immediately after being arrested. FILE PHOTO: JOSHUA SUDDOCK, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Orange County's schools superintendent is urging parents not to become alarmed by a new audit that suggests teachers accused of lewd and sexual acts against minors aren't being investigated in a timely manner by the state agency responsible for revoking education credentials.

County schools Superintendent Bill Habermehl criticized the backlog of nearly 12,600 cases pending before the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing as of summer 2009, but emphasized that Orange County schools have always been vigilant and don't allow these teachers to stay in contact with kids, even if their credentials haven't been revoked.

"Any time a teacher has been arrested, we (at the Orange County Department of Education) flag the situation immediately and start working with the school district," Habermehl said. "We don't wait – we pull them out of the classroom, so they don't have any contact with kids. Many times they are put into the district office and given another job. What we're trying to do is not just lose the money, by having them sit at home while they're still getting paid."

The audit, released Thursday by the California Bureau of State Audits, found that commission staffers took more than two months to begin reviewing 11 of 29 cases studied, and also failed to adequately track and follow up on important leads. The commission had about a three-year backlog during the audit period reviewed.

In the case of a middle school teacher suspected of showing pornography to his students, the agency waited 1-1/2 years after first being alerted to the case to request the police report. The commission waited approximately four months more to contact the parties involved in the incident, according to the audit.

By the time interviews were conducted in the pornography case, the vice principal who reported the incident had retired, and a student witness told the commission she could not recall details.

The teacher, meanwhile, took a job in another school district, and the committee eventually closed the case without taking any disciplinary action. The agency could not offer "any explanations as to why the division did not investigate this case sooner," the audit noted.

In another case reviewed, a teacher charged with multiple offenses including prostitution and petty theft in 2007 applied to have his credential renewed. Although the commission opened an investigation in December 2007, his credential was renewed one month later. His credential was finally revoked in April 2010 – almost 2-1/2 years after the case was opened – with no "reasonable" explanation offered for the delay, according to the audit.

When such cases are pending before the credentialing commission, "it's tough to tell what happens to these teachers," said audit spokeswoman Margarita Fernandez, noting record-keeping by the commission was poor.

"It means there could be someone in the classroom of questionable conduct who is still in the classroom because the commission hasn't made a determination."

A commission spokeswoman said the agency was taking the audit's findings seriously and had already made changes, including entering arrest data electronically, according to news reports.

The commission also told auditors that it had reduced its backlog of 12,600 cases in summer 2009 to about 4,000 by January 2010, Fernandez said, although she noted that those figures had not been independently verified.

"It's hard to tell when and which of these cases have been reviewed," Fernandez said.

The commission, which has 32 full-time employees, last year revoked the credentials of 306 teachers and administrators. The commission also grants teacher credentials.

The audit recommended the commission improve its database and provide more training to ensure information is gathered correctly and made easy to find. It also recommended looking at whether more employees are needed.

Habermehl, Orange County's superintendent, suggested that perhaps such cases should be resolved at the county level, to get around the bureaucracy in Sacramento altogether.

"Either streamline it while keeping it fair, or push it down to local level," Habermehl said. "It's just crazy – are the people up in Sacramento any better at evaluating these cases than we are? It's a very inefficient process that is not fair to the employee, the students or the taxpayers."

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